The Creator

 The Creator

Genre: Science fiction/action

Director: Gareth Edwards

Released: 2023

     In this review I'm going to criticize a fair few things about The Creator, but I want to make sure that these criticisms are properly contextualized. The Creator is a flawed movie, but it is a flawed movie with grand ambitions, a distinct and impressive visual style, and a sincere attempt to speak to pressing, present-day issues with an original story. I admire all of that stuff; I think The Creator represents a model of moviemaking we need more of these days, even if the film itself fails to expand very far into the new territory that model has the potential to unlock. What all of that means is that The Creator is wonderfully appealing in its conceit but frustrating in how it delivers on that premise.

     The Creator is set a few decades in the future in a time when A.I. has been unleashed into the world. After a few years of peaceable human-simulant (the movie's obligatory entry into the bloated catalogue of goofy sci-fi names for robots) relations, an A.I. detonates a nuclear device in Los Angeles in a murky episode of robotic aggression that is never fully explained. In response, America outlaws A.I. and declares war on the technology anywhere it is found in the world, particularly in the A.I. haven of New Asia. Their primary weapon in this fight is Nomad: an ariel base of terrifying destructive power that deletes huge swaths of New Asian countryside with its impressive arsenal of missiles.
The central target of America's military operations is the location and elimination of Nirmata, or, The Creator, the legendary inventor of A.I. whom the simulants revere as a deity. The lens through which we view all of this is Joshua, a former undercover operative in a pro-A.I. militia group who is recruited to a mission aimed at finding Nirmata's latest brainchild: a new simulant in the form of a young child who has the ability to control literally all technology. 

     There's more to the setup than this, but I want to keep things relatively spoiler free since this is a buzzy movie that lots of people want to see. Suffice it to say that the story revolves around Joshua's relationship with the weapon, whom he deems Alfie, and the struggle between pro and anti-A.I. forces. In terms of what works, the most obvious point of praise is the movie's visuals. The Creator has a strong cyberpunk aesthetic that almost seems minimalist at times.
Nothing on display here, with the exception of a few spoiler-y devices that we glimpse, is that outlandish or hard to imagine appearing in the near future. The huge cities, buildings, vehicles, and weapons the film showcases are all plays on things we're familiar with, and in contrast to the sleek, clean visuals of something like Star Trek, The Creator's future is distinctly gritty.
Rather than replacing the recognizable world with a more fantastic culture that operates on things like teleportation or lasers, The Creator grafts futurist visual and functional flourishes onto decidedly mundane areas. Dusty, rust-patched robots working in fields or grimy, poorly lit factories where workers fabricate simulants. It's all decidedly industrial or earthy, and it more than achieves the lived-in universe feel that it's going for. 

     The action scenes, too, are competently shot and staged and make good use of cool, believable weapons and gadgets that, while they don't change what a claustrophobic apartment-shootout or large scale base assault might look like, refresh them enough to keep them interesting. 

     Unfortunately, all of this prettiness is in service to a story that failed to interest me thematically or formally. Formally because its plot following a grizzled, world-weary older man rediscovering something he lost on a journey with a cute, idealist young charge, in contrast to the interesting spins the film's world enjoys, is entirely rote.
I generally don't try to predict where a movie is going, but here I didn't really have a choice. As soon as this dynamic was introduced I knew how it would play out in much the same way you know what a pickup truck is going to look like if someone says they want to show you one. Although superficial details might differ, the skeleton of what's on offer is so well known that the simple introduction of the idea carries with it certain assumptions about the lines and contours of its form, and The Creator absolutely colors inside those lines. 

     More frustratingly, The Creator stubbornly, emphatically refuses to introduce nuance into its tale of man and machine. Every arena that could potentially exhibit some subtlety is played as straightforward as possible. The film never explores why someone might dismiss the simulants' appeals for equality, what constitutes an individual's identity, or basically all of the questions that we as a civilization are increasingly likely to have to grapple with as artificial intelligence continues to advance. The movie doesn't even explore Nirmata's side, either, instead taking for granted the idea that the A.I. constitute, in a philosophical sense, "real" people.
Nor is there any real ideological conflict within the characters or the film's clashing sides. That nuke that started this whole thing? Just an accident. The A.I.'s intentions should they win the war? Totally peaceable.
There's no extremist A.I. faction that wants revenge for years of oppression and slaughter, no human character who acknowledges the difficulty of the situation but has any reason other than maliciousness to be concerned about the rise of this new species. At no point is the audience invited to take anything more than a passive observer's role and grapple with a tough idea or a challenging perspective. 

     What this means is that The Creator's conflict is purely physical, ideas aren't clashing, people/robots are. I don't like critiquing movies based on the story I wish they would have told, but in The Creator's case there's so much potential left on the table that it's impossible to not look askance at it and wonder why you couldn't have had some of that. 
More importantly, it feels like this story is ill-served by taking such a simplistic view of its subjects because if it wants to be truly timely, if it wants to speak into a cultural moment, it needs to have something to say or show and The Creator just doesn't.

To circle back to this review's thesis: I'm glad this movie exists, I think we need more movies like it. I am much happier that Gareth Edwards and co tried something new and missed the mark than I would have been had they rehashed something old or even tried to explore these ideas in the context of an existing I.P.
Like many people, I've been craving new, original stories that grapple with big ideas or respond to real-world issues and concerns in a way that's artful, subtle, challenging, but still entertaining and this movie makes it maybe a quarter of the way there. It's entertaining-ish and it nods in the direction of big ideas but plays it disappointingly safe.
I didn't particularly enjoy this movie, but I hope it succeeds and prompts more people to take up this model and see it through to its full potential.


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